Consumer and environmental groups quit retail forum

European consumers' organisation BEUC and the environmental campaign group European Environmental Bureau (EEB) today said that they are leaving the Retail Forum, a much-vaunted stakeholder platform that co-ordinates voluntary sustainability targets in the retail sector.

The groups say the current mandate, which has been the basis for the forum's work since 2009, has proven ineffective and will not result in ambitious sector-wide targets. Instead, retailers are setting individual commitments that are not comparable, the groups say. Most of Europe’s largest retailers are in the forum.

The European Commission, which set up the forum, acknowledged this in a monitoring report issued last month, which concluded that “targets continue to have varying points of reference, which can be the company level, a group of membersStates or a single installation, overall sales or a specific product group”. It also noted that many of the commitments were obligations that were legally required anyway.

In November, the Commission renewed the mandate of the forum for another three years. “We need strict sector-wide targets to effectively green the supply-chain,” said Monique Goyens, BEUC's director general. “Unless window-dressing changes to real commitment, BEUC refuses to play the role of legitimising the EU Retail Forum.”

The groups say they would rejoin the forum if a working group was set up to devise a new mandate.